It's game over for the Monopoly thimble

The days are numbered for the thimble, a traditional player token for the board game Monopoly. Hasbro, the owner of the game, announced that the token will be replaced as the result of fan voting. Record retail reporter Joan Verdon has the story.
John C. Ensslin/The Record

Game manufacturer Hasbro asked fans to vote on which tokens should be included with the next edition of the game, and the thimble didn't make the cut.

Hasbro is retiring the thimble token from the Monopoly board game.(Photo: Hasbro)

Story Highlights

Over 4 million votes were cast in the token election, conducted during the month of January.

The thimble was one of the original eight tokens used in the game when it debuted in the 1930s.

Fans were asked to vote on 64 possible tokens, including the current eight tokens.

A special edition, with all 64 tokens, including the thimble, will be released later this year.

The makers of the game Monopoly have bad news for the thimble token: It’s been voted off the board.

The silver thimble, which has been part of the venerable game for more than 80 years, will no longer be passing Go, collecting $200 or doing anything other than heading directly to retirement, as the result of an online vote by game players.

Hasbro, which has produced the game since it acquired the original manufacturer, Parker Bros., in 1991, said Thursday that the thimble will be replaced. More than 4 million votes were cast in the online election, which was conducted in January.

The thimble is one of the original tokens that have been used since Parker Bros. first released the game in 1935.

While the thimble isn’t the first token to be retired – remember the lantern? or the purse? – in today’s social media age it is being ushered out in a very public, and promotional, manner.

Emoji token?

Hasbro asked game players to vote online for the eight tokens they wanted to see chosen from a field of 64 possible tokens. That field included the current eight tokens, along with new candidates such as a Tyrannosaurus rex, a smiley emoji face and a rubber duckie.

When Parker Bros. began selling the game in 1935, thimbles – a metal cap that fits over a fingertip to protect a finger that is pushing a needle while sewing – were everyday household items. Now the thimble, Hasbro said in a press statement, has “lost its shine” with the game’s fans, and failed to win enough votes to keep it in the game.

"Where do children today see a thimble?" said toy historian Christopher Byrne, author of "Toy Time!: From Hula Hoops to He-man to Hungry Hungry Hippos" and content director at the toy review website TTPM.com, in a phone interview. "It's pretty alien to them," Byrne said, noting that modern kids probably only encounter thimbles when their parents haul out the Monopoly board.

Byrne said the token vote is an "inspired" promotion for the Monopoly brand. "It takes something that is a part of our culture and reminds people about it," he said. "I'm not someone who will run out and buy a new game because the thimble is antiquated, but it gets people talking about Monopoly. It's an iconic American toy."

The current Monopoly tokens(Photo: Hasbro)

The thimble is the seventh classic token to be retired from the game, sharing the same fate as the purse, the iron, the lantern, the cannon, the rocking horse and the horse and rider. A recent-vintage token, the sack of money, was only used for eight years before being retired in 2007.

The last token change occurred in 2013, when the iron was replaced with a cat after another fan vote.

T. rex in the running

Hasbro isn’t saying yet what will replace the thimble. The company posted on Facebook on Jan. 24 that the front-runners in the current election were the Scottie dog, the T. rex and the top hat. Votes were collected during the month of January.

The top eight token vote-getters will be included in the new edition of the game, to be released in March. A special edition of the game, with all 64 tokens featured in the election, including the thimble, will be released later this year.

According to Hasbro, Monopoly has been played by more than 1 billion people in 114 countries since its introduction in 1935. The properties named in the game are based on streets in Atlantic City, a vacation spot for Philadelphia resident Charles Darrow, who created the game first produced by Parker Bros.